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      ‘Challenges and Bumps’ Expected as N.B.A. Returns

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Latest Vaccine InformationU.S. Deaths Surpass 300,000F.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyon pro basketball‘Challenges and Bumps’ Expected as N.B.A. ReturnsPlaying without a bubble during the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t been smooth for sports leagues that tried this fall. Now it’s the N.B.A.’s turn.Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry is set to star in the first game of the new N.B.A. season on Tuesday.Credit…Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDec. 20, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ETOn Tuesday night at Barclays Center, Stephen Curry will take the floor for the Golden State Warriors and Steve Kerr will coach the team in its first meaningful game in more than nine months. The considerable wait to get back to work is where the oddities only begin for Kerr.As he returns from the longest hiatus he has known in an N.B.A. career that began when he was a rookie in 1988-89, Kerr must confront two familiar faces leading the Nets. He will be coaching against Kevin Durant, the co-pillar of two Warriors championship teams alongside Curry, and against a good friend, Steve Nash, who will be making his official debut as the Nets’ (and Durant’s) coach.It is a lot to track in terms of story lines and, at the same time, it is only half the story on opening night of the N.B.A.’s 75th season. To lead off a schedule that was moved up to begin just before Christmas, after strong urging from the league’s television partners in their quest for maximum profit, Warriors vs. Nets comes amid a pandemic that is wreaking its worst havoc yet across the United States.“We are in the same boat as a lot of people out there,” Kerr said. “Everything is strange for everybody. We’re lucky to be working, and we recognize that. So we are embracing our circumstances rather than lamenting them.”There figures to be enough worry to go around, from various corners of the league, even if Kerr manages to stifle his concerns. The N.B.A. is starting anew after its shortest off-season ever and will do so in the coronavirus-ravaged real world, just 72 days removed from the Los Angeles Lakers’ emerging as champions from the league’s bubble at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla.There will be no fans allowed inside Barclays to witness the various reunions for Kerr, Durant, Curry and Nash, but there will also be no bubble to protect the participants. The N.B.A. is counting on daily testing of players, coaches and team staff members, vigilant mask-wearing and social distancing, and an expanded book of health and safety guidelines to get through the winter — even as public health experts project January to be the most devastating month yet in the country’s battle against the virus.All 30 teams will also have a league-assigned “protocol officer” with them on the road and on team planes, trying to ensure adherence to the many restrictions outlined within the league’s nearly 160 pages of rules to govern the season.Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, recently predicted that access to a Covid-19 vaccine should be widespread nationally by late spring or early summer, with those who have no underlying conditions likely able to be vaccinated by the end of March or the beginning of April. The months until then, however, could be grim — something the N.B.A. has essentially acknowledged by releasing only the first half of its regular-season schedule, through March 4. The league office wants to maintain calendar flexibility to deal with the sort of coronavirus-related disruptions that have upended other sports, such as the N.F.L. and college football, which have not employed bubbles.“We know there are going to be challenges and bumps, but so far things are good and we’re optimistic that we have a plan that we can work through those challenges and bumps,” said David Weiss, the N.B.A.’s vice president of player matters.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      N.B.A. Hopes for ‘as Close to a Normal Season as Possible’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Latest Vaccine InformationU.S. Deaths Surpass 300,000F.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storymarc stein on basketballN.B.A. Hopes for ‘as Close to a Normal Season as Possible’The league is embarking on a season with restrictions but no bubble: Yes to trips to Whole Foods. No to crowded elevators and the hotel gift shop.The N.B.A. is back, but it’s clear it’s not the same — and no one can be sure when it will be closer to what it was before the pandemic.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesDec. 16, 2020, 4:38 p.m. ETThe first team to take up residence at the N.B.A. bubble in July was one of the first to be assigned a road trip last week. The Orlando Magic on Thursday afternoon boarded a team flight for the first time since March and made the short journey to Atlanta to jump-start a season like no other.Upon arrival, Orlando’s 47-passenger contingent — including two coronavirus testers — was divided up and ushered onto four separate buses to maximize social distancing. Players were reminded to avoid the hotel gift shop and crowded elevators and were instructed to stay on the hotel property, apart from visits to a nearby Whole Foods Market.“I don’t know if it’s going to be like that all season long,” Orlando’s Evan Fournier said in a phone interview. “I still don’t know what I’m really allowed to do. I guess that’s what the preseason is for.”Dress rehearsals, for a league adjusting to new realities, are indeed underway. Tuesday marked Day 5 for the N.B.A.’s rapid-fire exhibition schedule — with a countdown clock in the bottom left-hand corner of NBA TV, the league’s official channel, offering repeated reminders that next Tuesday’s opening night for the 2020-21 season is fast approaching.As Fournier noted, N.B.A. teams are trying to make road life as restrictive as possible, hoping to keep their traveling parties safe with the coronavirus still surging across the country. It’s way too soon to say the league’s measures are working, when leaguewide travel has just begun, but Fournier sounded refreshingly hopeful when we spoke, saying he feels safe given the players’ daily testing, combined with as many old bubble practices as teams are able to replicate now that they’re on the move.The French guard joked Saturday on Twitter, in his native language, that he was getting sick of himself after three days in the same Atlanta hotel room, but Fournier left little doubt in our chat that he was “super happy” to be back on the court for two games against the Hawks.“It’s so much better than just being in the bubble, in my opinion, because we actually get to travel and play in real arenas,” Fournier said.You can understand the sentiment. Everyone who plays and works in the league knows that the restricted-access village erected by the N.B.A. at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., was by far the safest way to conduct business and finish the 2019-20 season, but no one wanted to do it again because of the mental-health toll exacted by long stays behind Disney’s gates, cut off from the outside world.Orlando’s Evan Fournier, right, said playing in arenas, even without fans, is still better than playing inside the bubble.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesSo the N.B.A. will try to do it this way, with nearly 160 pages of safety guidelines for teams to follow to try to keep the coronavirus from infiltrating practices and mostly fan-less arenas, even as the increasing (and at times farcical) ineffectiveness of college football and basketball in combating the virus suggests that major disruptions are looming. The N.F.L., without a bubble, has likewise had countless troubles.A month ago, as the draft and free agency approached, I wrote about how strange it was to see and hear so little public concern about the daunting challenges that the N.B.A. would face this winter, when medical experts were rightly predicting an alarming spike in Covid-19 cases. Not much has changed in the weeks since — James Harden’s uncertain future in Houston gets far more coverage from the basketball media than health issues — but I do get it. The virus has been a constant in our lives for nine months. Many have grown weary of worrying.It was thus so tempting, starting Friday night, to get swept up in the basketball as the preseason began. Training camps landed a little later on the calendar than usual, but this, after all, is the time of year for just that — for all teams and their fans to dream before the games start counting.John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins have looked healthier and livelier than the Houston Rockets, who are otherwise soaked in the drama of the disgruntled Harden, could have hoped. Golden State’s Stephen Curry returned from his own injury woes with a new trick shot that he flung from the empty stands at Chase Center during pregame warm-ups and that may have topped every past trick shot in a career full of them. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving had majestic moments together in their long-delayed debut as Nets teammates. Talen Horton-Tucker, who turned 20 on Nov. 25, looked as dangerous as Los Angeles Lakers insiders have whispered for months he would be when he got a chance to play real minutes. Zion Williamson, too, was back to his wrecking-ball best Monday night in the New Orleans Pelicans’ exhibition opener.Thursday’s Minnesota at Dallas preseason game is the first I will have the chance to attend in person. Members of the news media are not allowed to get anywhere near the floor or the two teams, as we used to, but I don’t think I will be able to stay home after getting Fournier’s description of the State Farm Arena scene for the Magic’s 116-112 victory over the Hawks in the teams’ Friday exhibition.“It was really fun, actually,” Fournier said. “I didn’t really pay attention to the empty seats. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just because I was so happy to be out there.”Teams like the Los Angeles Lakers spent months in the bubble this summer, which took a mental toll. Some elements of the bubble environment, like sideline masks, remain as the league goes forward in fan-less arenas.Credit…Kyusung Gong/Associated PressWhere I live, in the same city as one of the game’s loudest optimists, talk about the coming season tends to be even more bullish, in contrast to my typical fear-the-worst anxiety, which I am once again struggling to stifle. Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, is a self-professed vaccines “geek” who has been reading everything he can as a mass vaccination campaign begins to roll out nationwide. Last week on SiriusXM NBA Radio, Cuban said it was “my personal belief” that there would be a “huge snap back” in March or April “where most of the people in the country will have had access” to coronavirus vaccination “if they wanted it.”Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, has predicted that most people will be able to get the vaccine by late spring or early summer, and that those with no underlying conditions could be vaccinated by the end of March or beginning of April. Seemingly taking his cue from such projections, Cuban told SiriusXM that he thinks “things are going to get really fun” in N.B.A. arenas in the second half of the season, provided that the league’s rush to start before Christmas to satisfy its television partners proceeds into the spring with no serious setbacks.When I reached Cuban on Tuesday, he insisted that the Mavericks’ mantra is “safety first, safety second and safety third.” He also confirmed that he would be at American Airlines Center on Thursday night, which will be Cuban’s first opportunity to watch his team in person since the viral clip of his stunned in-game reaction to news of the season’s suspension on March 11.“So far, so good,” Cuban said. “The most important aspect is that the players and staff that are traveling are treating each game as a self-imposed bubble. We won’t be able to eliminate cases and outbreaks, but if we can minimize them, then hopefully it can be as close to a normal season as possible.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Giannis Antetokounmpo Signs $228 Million Extension With Bucks

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGiannis Antetokounmpo Signs $228 Million Extension With BucksWith less than a week before the deadline, Antetokounmpo signed a five-year extension with the team that drafted him in 2013. He has won the past two N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Awards.Giannis Antetokounmpo posted on social media that he was “blessed to be able to be a part of the Milwaukee Bucks for the next 5 years.”Credit…Ashley Landis/Associated PressDec. 15, 2020Updated 7:01 p.m. ETGiannis Antetokounmpo redoubled his commitment to the only N.B.A. franchise he has known by signing a five-year contract extension worth an estimated $228 million from the Milwaukee Bucks.Six days before a Dec. 21 deadline to either sign the so-called supermax extension or become an unrestricted free agent after this season, Antetokounmpo on Tuesday released a statement via his social media channels proclaiming himself “blessed to be able to be a part of the Milwaukee Bucks for the next 5 years.”“This is my home, this is my city,” Antetokounmpo wrote.This is my home, this is my city.. I’m blessed to be able to be a part of the Milwaukee Bucks for the next 5 years. Let’s make these years count. The show goes on, let’s get it. 🤎🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/895tCBE9RK— Giannis Ugo Antetokounmpo (@Giannis_An34) December 15, 2020
      In a team statement later Tuesday confirming the deal, Antetokounmpo said: “You took a chance on us eight years ago and now putting my signature on a contract like this is unreal — but it’s all because of hard work. This is my home and I’m going to continue working hard and do my best to make the Bucks, our fans and the city proud. Let’s have fun, win and make these years count.”The Bucks selected Antetokounmpo, who was born and raised in Greece by Nigerian parents, with the 15th overall pick in the 2013 draft, despite Antetokounmpo’s limited professional experience in the Greek second division. Antetokounmpo has blossomed beyond all expectations to win back-to-back Most Valuable Player Awards and, by committing his long-term future to the Bucks, has delivered the team its most significant victory since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson led Milwaukee to its lone N.B.A. championship in 1970-1971.“This is one of the great days in Bucks history,” Peter Feigin, the Bucks’ team president, said during a virtual meeting organized by the Milwaukee Press Club shortly after Antetokounmpo revealed the news.Antetokounmpo, who turned 26 on Dec. 6, is under contract for one more season on his current deal and, because he signed an extension, cannot be traded by the Bucks before next season. The extension is the largest contract in N.B.A. history, surpassing the five-year, $207 million contract Russell Westbrook signed to stay with the Oklahoma City Thunder in September 2017. Antetokounmpo’s new deal includes a player option after the 2024-25 season that would allow him to enter free agency one year early.After winning M.V.P. honors for the first time in 2018-19, Antetokounmpo averaged 29.5 points, 13.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game last season to repeat as M.V.P. He was also named Defensive Player of the Year last season, joining Michael Jordan (1987-88) and Hakeem Olajuwon (1993-94) as the only players to win the M.V.P. and defensive player awards in the same season.The Bucks posted the league’s best regular-season record in each of the past two seasons but have had back-to-back playoff disappointments, which led to considerable apprehension in Milwaukee that Antetokounmpo might pass on the extension and choose a new team next season. After a meek second-round playoff series loss to the Miami Heat this summer, Bucks officials promised Antetokounmpo that they would upgrade the roster — and they duly agreed to a trade in November to acquire the highly rated guard Jrue Holiday from the New Orleans Pelicans.But a planned sign-and-trade deal with the Sacramento Kings to acquire the sharpshooting restricted free agent Bogdan Bogdanovic in addition to Holiday collapsed and, as The New York Times first reported, prompted the league office to open an investigation. The N.B.A. is exploring possible violations of its anti-tampering rules, since it appeared that the Bucks and Kings had already reached an agreement on a sign-and-trade transaction more than three days before free-agent discussions of any kind were allowed to start. Bogdanovic eventually joined the Atlanta Hawks after he signed a four-year, $72 million offer sheet with the Hawks that Sacramento elected not to match.Tuesday’s announcement ended a nervy period for the Bucks since the Holiday acquisition and the Bogdanovic drama, sparing the small-market franchise from the specter of constant questions about Antetokounmpo’s future as the Bucks try to make it back to the N.B.A. finals for the first time since 1973-74. After that season, Abdul-Jabbar quietly asked Milwaukee to trade him, saying he preferred to live in New York or Los Angeles. The request ultimately led the Bucks to trade Abdul-Jabbar to the Los Angeles Lakers in June 1975.In a 2017 interview with The Times, Antetokounmpo described himself as “a low-profile guy” who had no interest in “all these flashy cities like L.A. or Miami.”“I don’t know if I could be the same player if I played in those cities,” Antetokounmpo said then.Teams such as Miami, Toronto and Dallas had been managing their payrolls in hopes of making a free-agent run at Antetokounmpo in 2021, but to the Bucks’ great relief, teams in flashier markets won’t get that chance.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Endeavor Expands N.B.A. Talent Reach With Stake in BDA Sports

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEndeavor Expands N.B.A. Talent Reach With Stake in BDA SportsBill Duffy, who founded BDA Sports Management more than two decades ago, represents rising basketball stars like the N.B.A.’s Luka Doncic and the W.N.B.A.’s Sabrina Ionescu.Bill Duffy, who represents stars like the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic, center, is selling a stake in his agency, BDA Sports, to Endeavor.Credit…Ashley Landis-Pool/Getty ImagesDec. 15, 2020, 9:01 a.m. ETEndeavor, the entertainment and sports conglomerate, expanded its sports representation business Tuesday by purchasing a stake in BDA Sports Management, the firm led by the influential N.B.A. agent Bill Duffy.The partnership calls for Duffy, who represents the rising basketball stars Luka Doncic and Sabrina Ionescu, to become an adviser in the sports division of William Morris Endeavor, one of Hollywood’s major talent agencies. Duffy will continue to serve as chairman and chief executive of BDA Sports, which will retain its own branding and represents an estimated 130 players in the N.B.A., W.N.B.A. and professional leagues internationally.“We don’t really have an uber-N.B.A.-agent in our company,” Mark Shapiro, Endeavor’s president, said in an interview. “I’m certain this will accelerate our growth plan as it relates to representing more N.B.A. players both on and off the court.”Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Shapiro described Endeavor’s stake as a “meaningful, strategic investment.” WME Sports has provided full-service representation for several tennis and golf clients, including the tennis stars Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, but the sports division’s co-head, Karen Brodkin, said the alliance with Duffy was part of a broader strategy to work with “more clients earlier in their career trajectory” in sports where they haven’t historically. Duffy said the union with WME would position BDA Sports “to build something even bigger and better than what we’ve been able to do.”“The modern athlete has a high expectation for off-the-court opportunities,” Duffy said. “They want to get into gaming, into fashion, into entrepreneurial endeavors. WME has a history of doing that at the highest level, so with this partnership, it’s like we’re expanding our menu from one page to four.”Duffy, who turns 61 in January, oversees a team of six agents domestically and seven internationally. He has represented Hall of Fame N.B.A. players like Yao Ming and Steve Nash, now the head coach of the Nets. Duffy’s current clients include Ionescu of the W.N.B.A.’s Liberty and the N.B.A. players Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton, Chicago’s Zach LaVine, Miami’s Goran Dragic and the Knicks’ RJ Barrett.A fifth-round draft pick by the Denver Nuggets in 1982 after playing in college at Minnesota and Santa Clara, Duffy began his agent career by representing the former Cleveland Browns wide receiver Webster Slaughter in 1985. Duffy was connected to Slaughter by his boyhood friend Ronnie Lott, the former San Francisco 49ers star and Hall of Famer, and soon moved into basketball representation. He founded BDA Sports in 1996.Endeavor, which is led by Ari Emanuel and represents entertainers like Denzel Washington and Selena Gomez, has been making other sports moves. The agency’s recent hires include Bret Just, who represents pro and college basketball coaches and N.B.A. front-office executives, and the N.F.L. player agents Brian Ayrault and Ben Renzin, who were lured away from the rival Creative Artists Agency to launch a football group for WME Sports.The arrangement between WME and BDA Sports is the latest in a string of partnerships between top Hollywood agencies and player-representation companies in both basketball and soccer — the team sports with the most global reach. In July 2019, the prominent N.B.A. agent Rich Paul sold what the buyer United Talent Agency called a “significant stake” in Paul’s Klutch Sports Group to establish Klutch as UTA’s sports division.Even before their partnership was formalized Tuesday, Duffy’s BDA Sports had enlisted WME Sports’ help with off-the-court pursuits for various clients. Nash’s forays into soccer and basketball broadcasting after he retired as player in 2015 were largely arranged by WME. BDA and WME also each signed Ionescu as a client in the spring, for on- and off-court representation, after the Liberty selected the former Oregon star with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 W.N.B.A. draft.“I’m an ex-athlete and I understand the importance of stability and support during that transition in life when the ball stops bouncing,” Duffy said. “I have to be thinking about longevity for them and their careers always.”Shapiro said the deal with Duffy’s BDA “would have been done a lot sooner” if not for the coronavirus pandemic. Like other agencies in Hollywood, Endeavor instituted a round of layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts earlier this year. Public events in many of its specialty areas — like Broadway, stand-up comedy, music and fashion — remain “primarily closed,” Shapiro said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Anthony Carter's Agent Cost Him $3 Million. The Agent Paid Him Back.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAn Agent’s Mistake Cost an N.B.A. Player $3 Million. He Paid Him Back.All Bill Duffy had to do was inform the Miami Heat that Anthony Carter planned to return. Two decades after failing to do that, Duffy has made his client whole.Anthony Carter was an unassuming reserve for the Miami Heat. He became famous when his agent made a simple error that cost him more than $3 million.Credit…Joe Murphy/NBAE, via Getty ImagesDec. 14, 2020, 9:00 a.m. ETAnthony Carter is one of the most consequential figures in Miami Heat history. And it was all because of a mistake.Sure, any Knicks fan will tell you that Carter came out of nowhere to beat their team at the buzzer in Game 3 of the 2000 Eastern Conference semifinals. But Carter was never a star. Far from it: He spent the first four seasons of his 13-year N.B.A. career as a reserve for the Heat, averaging between 4.1 and 6.3 points a game.And as great as the Knicks shot was, it was something that happened years afterward that forever enshrined Carter in Heat lore.After the 2002-03 season, Carter, then 27, was planning to exercise a $4.1 million player option to remain in Miami. Picking up the option was a no-brainer. Carter was coming off a disappointing season in which he averaged 4.1 points on .356 shooting in 49 games. For a player with that stat line, $4.1 million was a fortune.Except Carter’s agent, Bill Duffy, failed to notify the Heat by the June 30 deadline that Carter was coming back. Instead of locking in another season in Miami, Carter accidentally became a free agent.The mistake cost him at least $3 million. Carter had to settle for a minimum contract with the San Antonio Spurs — roughly $750,000 — the next season, rather than the $4.1 million he would have locked in by exercising his option.As criticism rained down on Duffy, the agent offered to make it right. He would pay Carter $3 million out of his own pocket — through an agreed-upon payment schedule — to make up for the mistake, essentially the difference between his Spurs contract and the Heat salary he had forfeited. It was an unusual and virtually unprecedented move.This year marked the last of those payments, with Carter confirming in an interview this week that Duffy made good on his promise.That was hardly a surprise for Carter, who said he never considered firing Duffy in the wake of the incident.Credit…Ron Turenne/NBAE, via Getty Images‘I wasn’t even mad, to tell you the truth. I didn’t think anything of it until lawyers and stuff called. I didn’t jump to any conclusions.’ Anthony Carter, who coached in the N.B.A.’s development league before joining the Heat as an assistant, on his relationship with his agent.“I wasn’t even mad, to tell you the truth,” said Carter, who is now back with the Heat as an assistant coach. “I didn’t think anything of it until lawyers and stuff called. I didn’t jump to any conclusions. I didn’t say, ‘What happened?’ Because I knew what type of person he was. Things happen.”It was a blunder that had cascading effects.The most noteworthy ripple was that it gave Pat Riley, the Heat’s president, an unexpected amount of cap space that summer, which he used to sign Lamar Odom as a free agent. One year later, in 2004, Odom was the centerpiece of a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers for Shaquille O’Neal.Two years after acquiring O’Neal, Miami won its first N.B.A. championship. It was Duffy’s clerical error that, at least in part, allowed the championship to happen. That turned Carter’s contract situation with the Heat into one of the all-time “What Ifs?” in league history.“I should’ve got one of them rings, too,” Carter, 45, joked.Riley declined to comment for this article.While Carter’s loyalty to Duffy may seem baffling to some, it was a result of Duffy’s previous faith in Carter.Carter’s making it to the N.B.A. at all was a long shot. He dropped out of Alonzo A. Crim High School in Atlanta after his freshman year. He spent the next three years traveling around the city and playing basketball games for money to make a living. At one of those games in 1994, an opponent offered to send a tape highlighting Carter’s game to the coach at Saddleback College, a junior college in California. With some help of friends and family, Carter got his G.E.D. and headed west. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Hawaii, a Division I program.In 1998, months after he injured his left shoulder before his senior year at Hawaii, Carter damaged it more seriously on the first day of a camp ahead of the N.B.A. draft. The injury required surgery and other agents stopped pursuing him, assuming that his N.B.A. hopes were dead. All of them, that is, except for Duffy, who stuck with Carter and arranged for him to sign with the Heat after he went undrafted. He spent four years with the team.Duffy’s mistake could have been as damaging to his future as it was to Carter’s. But in promising to pay back Carter, his loyalty instead became a selling point for his services.“When this happened, I was hearing from a lot of people because I took responsibility,” Duffy said. “I took ownership of it and took care of it and he was taken care of.“I’ve had Wall Street people call me and say: ‘Man, that happens all the time. Everybody tries to hide from it. They try to pass the buck. You stood up for it. You took care of it.’ I actually gained a lot of respect from people.”Credit…Jeff Chiu/Associated Press‘When this happened, I was hearing from a lot of people because I took responsibility. I took ownership of it and took care of it.’Bill Duffy, an agent whose client list now includes Luka Doncic and Rajon Rondo.At the time, it took days for the news of the filing error to reach Carter. Duffy, who declined to go into the specifics of how the oversight occurred, first learned about from the team. Llew Haden, Carter’s close friend and financial adviser, said he heard about it on July 4, when a reporter called looking for a comment.“I know my emotion wasn’t anger,” Haden said. “First, I was just astounded. ‘How in the hell could something like this happen?’ And then it was, ‘What are we going to do next?’”N.B.A. agents are known to be hypercompetitive. Yet both Carter and Haden said they did not receive any calls from Duffy’s competitors. Instead, Haden theorized, they may have been celebrating a rival’s apparent professional downfall.“I think most of them were just dancing up and down in the halls,” Haden said. “They were going to be able to get clients who would be tempted to go with them.”In fact, from the day they received the news, the only calls that Carter and Haden received were from lawyers offering to represent Carter pro bono to sue Duffy — offers they never seriously considered.Duffy flew to Atlanta that week to meet with Carter and Haden and work out their financial arrangement: a series of payments — a sort of annuity lasting until 2020 — that would make Carter whole.“He was there for me from Day 1,” Carter said. “I just knew I was going to stick with him regardless, and to this day, we have a close friendship.”Duffy’s business survived the mistake, too. Today, he has a stable roster of N.B.A. clients, including Luka Doncic, Rajon Rondo and Goran Dragic.After leaving the Heat, Carter stayed in the league for nine more seasons. He developed a reputation as a hard worker and was a key player on the 2008-2009 Denver Nuggets, who went to the Western Conference finals. According to Basketball Reference, Carter’s N.B.A. earnings are estimated at $17 million, less than what many current players now collect in a single season. The $3 million in restitution from Duffy represents a significant portion of his career earnings.Carter and Duffy have maintained an enduring relationship. Duffy has given Carter guidance on his children, including his son Devin, who is a high school basketball player currently committed to the University of South Carolina. Duffy also still looks over Carter’s contracts.Carter says he has never brought up the filing error with Duffy, not even to joke about it. Nor has he joked about it with Riley since returning to the organization as a coach in 2016. But he says he is at peace with how things worked out.“I got my name in the history books in two different ways,” Carter said, referring to his buzzer-beater and the contract-that-wasn’t. “I wouldn’t change anything.”Carter is known for two things: the clerical error that cost him more than $3 million, and this buzzer-beater against the Knicks in 2000.Credit…Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty ImagesAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving Shine in Preseason Homecoming

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKevin Durant and Kyrie Irving Shine in Preseason HomecomingWith both players returning from injuries, Durant and Irving combined for 33 points in their first game together, more than a year after joining the Nets.Kevin Durant scored 15 points in his first game since June 10, 2019. “It felt great to get back in the routine and get back on the floor and feel like a player again,” he said.Credit…Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesDec. 13, 2020It’s rare that an N.B.A. preseason game is must-see television.But Sunday night’s matchup featuring the Nets and Washington Wizards might have been the most anticipated preseason game in New York basketball history.Steve Nash roamed the sidelines for the first time as head coach.But more important for Nets fans and the franchise, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, one of the most talented duos in the league with a combined 16 All-Star selections, took the floor for the first time as teammates after injuries forced Durant to miss all of last season and limited Irving to 20 games.The Nets won, 119-114, at Barclays Center but what mattered was the product on the floor: Durant and Irving looked every bit the All-Stars they have been their entire careers.Let’s put in a caveat here: It was one preseason game. One. Preseason. Game. Players aren’t in shape yet. They are rusty. Coaches are still figuring out their personnel.But preseason or not, Durant and Irving mostly looked like the same players, and that alone is enough reason for Nets brass to be optimistic about their championship aspirations for the 2020-21 season. If this was what the rusty versions of Durant and Irving could do, what will the in-rhythm ones look like?It took all of 46 seconds to get Nets fans salivating, when Durant, who won the Most Valuable Player Award in 2014, drove along the baseline on the left side for an open dunk. It was his first basket in a game since Game 5 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals, when Durant tore his right Achilles’ tendon, one of the most serious injuries a basketball player can suffer.Kyrie Irving, right, guarding the Wizards rookie Deni Avdija. Irving scored 18 points in his first game with Durant.Credit…Kathy Willens/Associated PressBut Durant showed minimal sign of that injury. He made all three of his field goals in the first quarter and looked spry running up and down the court. He finished the first half with 15 points on eight shots. One of the best scorers in the history of the N.B.A., Durant pulled out moves he had refined before his injury, like his one-footed fadeaway. He was also active defensively, blocking two shots and taking a charge.Durant said afterward that he didn’t think he had played particularly well, but that the game was a “good first step.”“It felt great to get back in the routine and get back on the floor and feel like a player again,” Durant said. “It felt great. Everybody’s texting and calling asking me how I’m feeling. So I can’t wait to get back into the swing of the things so I feel like one of the guys.”After the game ended, a smiling Durant exchanged hugs with his teammates and several Wizards players, including his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate Russell Westbrook.“The beauty of Kevin, obviously on top of all the ability he brings to the game, is his love for the game,” Nash said after the game. “He brings a childlike joy and a love for the game every day when he comes to work. So it’s beautiful to see him back on the basketball court. I think the world missed him out there.”Irving was not any different, matching Durant shot for shot early on. In the first half, Irving went 7 of 9 from the field for 18 points and added four assists before checking out for good. While Durant is one of the best shot makers in N.B.A. history, Irving is one of the best dribblers the league has ever seen. That ability was on full display Sunday night, as he easily made creative angles on jumpers.“That’s one of the perks of this position is you get to coach two incredible players,” Nash said. “Ky was super sharp and Kevin, after such an extensive layoff, was very good and close to being incredible. He’s going to keep building and getting comfortable. When you have that kind of injury, it’s kind of remarkable that he’s at the level he’s at.”Entering the game, there was some intrigue over what kind of offense Irving and Durant wanted to run, as a result of an Instagram Live session the two held Saturday. During their talk, Irving argued that he should receive eight post-ups a game, because of the mismatch he thought it would create.This would be a highly unconventional use of a point guard, typically the quarterback of the offense from outside the 3-point line. Durant disagreed with Irving’s assessment, saying, “I don’t think that’s good for the continuity of our offense if our point guard always wants to be underneath the rim.” As they to continued to debate the finer points of Irving’s proposal, Durant essentially ended the conversation with, “We’re going to see, though.”Irving did not receive the ball much under the basket on Sunday night, like he had pitched. He didn’t need to. He got his shots off as he had his entire career: whenever and wherever he wanted.“Kyrie looked incredible,” Durant said. “I mean, he’s unstoppable. He’s a master at his craft. So he could do pretty much whatever he wants out on the floor. He set the tone for us.”Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie said after the game that he was “not too surprised” by the strong play of Durant and Irving.“They’re phenomenal scorers, obviously,” Dinwiddie said. “And best friends. So I think the flow and the vibe that they’re going to have is going to be one of the best duos in the league, if not the best duo in the league.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Giannis Antetokounmpo Has Left the Bucks, and Their Fans, Waiting

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGiannis Antetokounmpo Has Plenty of Pens. But Will He Sign?The Milwaukee Bucks superstar was gifted pens by many of his teammates in hopes he would sign a so-called supermax deal with the team. In a complicated business, it’s not that simple.Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks has won the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award in back-to-back seasons. He has an entire city and region waiting to see if he will stick around.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesDec. 11, 2020, 2:35 p.m. ETWhen the Milwaukee Bucks showed up for training camp on Sunday, Khris Middleton presented his teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo with a gift for his 26th birthday: a pen. Antetokounmpo did not understand its significance at first.“Then I was thinking about it, and I realized he was wanting me to sign the contract,” he said.Antetokounmpo got the joke. He thought it was funny. But as more teammates arrived and they continued to bestow him with pens, he apparently stopped laughing.“It got a little bit old,” he said. “I’ve got 20 pens here in my locker.”The problem is that Antetokounmpo has not used any of them for their intended purpose. He has until Dec. 21 to sign a so-called supermax contract extension that would be worth about $227 million and would run through the 2025-26 season. Barring that, or a more modest extension, he would become an unrestricted free agent next summer.Waiting is the hardest part in Milwaukee, which has gone 49 years since the Bucks won their only N.B.A. championship and now has no shortage of Greek Freak agita. Fans have watched Antetokounmpo blossom from a spindly-limbed teenager into one of the league’s most dynamic forces, a back-to-back winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award.Now, as the days pass and the deadline to resolve his contract situation comes into sharper focus, Antetokounmpo is holding the city in a state of suspense.In hopes of convincing Antetokounmpo to stick around, Milwaukee overpaid to acquire Jrue Holiday, one of the N.B.A.’s best two-way guards.Credit…Rusty Costanza/Associated PressFrank Madden, a management consultant and longtime Bucks fan who has written and co-hosted podcasts about the team, noted how a cloud had been hanging over the franchise in recent months because of the uncertainty surrounding Antetokounmpo, a cloud that had darkened in the wake of another early exit from the playoffs.“But now we’ve reached this inflection point where it’s not just about the national media saying, ‘Does he want to leave?’” Madden said in a telephone interview. “It’s also Giannis opening the door to that — or at least not slamming it shut by signing the extension.”Much of that feeling stems from comments that Antetokounmpo made — or chose not to make — on Wednesday at a virtual news conference. In addition to revealing that he had a new collection of unused pens, Antetokounmpo was noncommittal about his extension. He said he was leaving it up to his agents.“I’m just focusing on basketball,” he said. “I do what I love. What I love is playing basketball. What I love is improving. What I love is helping my teammates. What I love is winning games. And off the court, about agents and contracts, I’m not focusing on that. Not that I don’t care about it. Obviously I care about it. It’s a very big decision in my life, and probably one of the biggest decisions I’m going to make. But I just let my agent focus on that.”Antetokounmpo has options. He could sign the supermax deal by Dec. 21. He could sign a shorter-term contract — there is no deadline for that style extension — for less money. Or he could opt not to sign anything at all, which would not necessarily preclude him from signing a supermax extension next summer.But it would also lead to several more months of questions and communal hand-wringing — for fans and for the Bucks’ front office, which would need to weigh whether the team would be willing to risk letting him walk away next summer without seeking any compensation for him in a trade.“For a guy who says he just wants to focus on basketball, it would be such a distraction,” Bart Winkler, the host of a morning sports-talk radio show in Milwaukee, said in a telephone interview. “I think we’d all been assuming, whether it was going to be a short contract or a super max, that somehow, someway, he would sign his next contract to stay in Milwaukee. And now, for the first time, there’s some real concern that he might not.”When Antetokounmpo was drafted in 2013, he was a skinny teenager from Greece who was routinely amazed by American culture. Now he is a dominant force in the league.Credit…Eirini Vourloumis for The New York TimesOther cities have gone through similar ordeals with marquee players. Consider Oklahoma City’s fractured relationship with Kevin Durant after he decided to jump to the Golden State Warriors as a free agent in 2016, or Cleveland’s more nuanced ties to LeBron James, who paralyzed that city more than once as he weighed his future.“I think it kind of comes with the territory of being a fan of a team that has an elite player,” Madden, the management consultant, said, “and doubly so if you’re following a small-market team. Unfortunately, when your team has a superstar, there’s this double-edged sword of expectations and rumors about where they may go next on the N.B.A. roulette wheel, especially given how transaction-centric the league has become. But as Bucks fans, we haven’t had to go through this pre-Giannis.”Or at least not since 1975, when the Bucks fulfilled Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s request to be traded. Abdul-Jabbar had led Milwaukee to a championship in 1970-71 but grew frustrated by the small market.Antetokounmpo is beloved in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin. The sports landscape there is still dominated by the N.F.L.’s Green Bay Packers, but Antetokounmpo has helped lift the Bucks to new levels of popularity since the team drafted him with the 15th overall pick in 2013.Beyond his talent, Antetokounmpo instantly endeared himself to fans with his charm, his humor, his community outreach and his seeming innocence. As a rookie, he delighted in tasting his first fruit smoothie. “MAN GOD BLESS AMERICA,” he wrote on Twitter, complete with a smiley face emoticon.Now, he has his own signature sneaker line with Nike. His rags-to-riches story is being made into a motion picture for Disney. And by extending his contract negotiations and deflecting questions about them, he is finally treating basketball like something other than a game: He is, in his own way, acknowledging that it is a business.The stakes could not be higher. The Bucks have finished each of the past two seasons with the league’s best regular-season record while falling short in the playoffs. In September, they were dominated by the Miami Heat in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. That was the moment when the city’s collective concern went from a simmer to a boil.During an abridged off-season, the Bucks improved their backcourt by acquiring Jrue Holiday, one of the league’s best two-way guards, from the New Orleans Pelicans. As a part of the deal, the Bucks sent the Pelicans three future first-round picks. Holiday is a terrific player but the Bucks overpaid to get him, mortgaging a big chunk of their future because they were determined to build out their roster around Antetokounmpo and, by extension, make him happier.“The bottom line for Bucks fans is we know if we don’t win a title with Giannis, we won’t have one here for a long, long time,” Winkler said. “That’s why everyone is so tense.”Complicating matters, the Bucks appeared to bungle a deal to land Bogdan Bogdanovic, a forward who wound up with the Atlanta Hawks.“Nobody wants to win a championship more than me,” Antetokounmpo said. “I can guarantee you that.”Now, as he mulls his contract, some fans face decisions of their own. Matt Aleithe, a small-business owner from just outside Milwaukee, said he was nearing a deadline to renew his season tickets for 2021-22, when arenas would presumably welcome fans back. Aleithe said he was pleased with the Bucks’ off-season moves — “The team’s better than they were at the end of last season,” he said — but he could not help but wonder whether Antetokounmpo would still be playing for them in a year.“It’s kind of a big commitment, being a season-ticket holder,” Aleithe said. “There’s just a little more angst among fans these days.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Saying Goodbye to the Trips of a Lifetime

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMarc Stein On BasketballSaying Goodbye to the Trips of a LifetimeThe Warriors dynasty allowed a reporter to spend some unexpected, and extremely welcome, time with his dad.The dynastic Golden State Warriors of 2015 to 2019 may never be seen again, but their run of N.B.A. finals appearances was memorable in many ways.Credit…Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesDec. 9, 2020, 9:00 a.m. ETMarc Stein is away this week.I’m not ready to say goodbye to the Golden State Warriors.I find myself pining for the splendor of Steph Curry, the snarl of Draymond Green, the beautiful basketball, the sheer dominance. I fear we may never see it again — at least, not at the level we once did.Klay Thompson’s shredded Achilles’ tendon probably means a second straight lost season, and possibly a fatal blow to the Warriors’ hopes for a revival. And that’s where I truly become wistful.I don’t miss the Warriors as a fan would (my San Jose roots notwithstanding). It’s not just that I’ll miss writing about their roundball artistry (though that’s certainly true, too). It’s more personal than that.To their fans, the Warriors provided endless basketball bliss — a montage of deep 3s and shimmies and raucous parades. To others, they provided a standard of selfless play and joyful domination. They defined an era, and redefined the formula for building a superteam.But they gave me something far more precious: a final few hours with my father. I just didn’t know it at the time.From 2015 to 2019, the Warriors were a fixture in the N.B.A. finals. So for five straight Junes, I got a bonus trip to see my parents, who reside outside Sacramento, about two hours from the Bay Area. The detour became a cherished annual tradition.We don’t root for teams in this business. But we do (quietly) root for results out of self-interest. We root for great stories and historic performances — and against games going to overtime on deadline.And so I’ll admit I smiled a bit each spring, as the Warriors finished off Houston or Oklahoma City or San Antonio, because it meant another trip home.In 2019, I squeezed in the visit on June 3, as the N.B.A. finals shifted from Toronto to Oakland, the series tied at one game each. Curry was humming. Thompson was still healthy. Kevin Durant was on the mend, and looming. The dynasty was still intact.I arrived at Mom and Dad’s in time for dinner, then settled in for “Jeopardy!,” my father’s favorite show. James Holzhauer, a dynasty in his own right, was primed for his 33rd straight game.The next morning, I said my goodbyes and headed back to Oakland. I planned to see them again in August, for my dad’s 84th birthday.Howard Beck and his dad, Sy, shared of a love of newspapers. Trips to California to cover the N.B.A. finals from 2015 to 2019 got Howard some extra time with his family.Credit…Howard BeckMy dad was neither a journalist nor a serious sports fan, but he loved newspapers, enjoyed watching the occasional 49ers game with me and was one of my greatest cheerleaders from the moment I chose the sportswriting path.If I’m tracing my career to a single moment, it’s “The Catch” — Joe Montana to Dwight Clark, in the N.F.C. championship game in 1982 — which sent a mighty dopamine jolt through my preteen brain and ignited my fandom. (The Warriors were an afterthought back then, although I did once serve as ball boy for a day, at age 9, after winning a drawing at a children’s shoe store.)I spent my mornings immersed in the San Jose Mercury News sports section. And for that I can thank my dad, a voracious reader who religiously subscribed to The Merc and The Wall Street Journal, and instilled in his three sons the same curiosity about the world.Sy Beck, of Pelham Parkway, was a proud Bronx native who grew up at a time when New York had a dozen daily newspapers — and by his telling, he read them all. He would boast, in that New York way of his, that none of our local papers could measure up to his favorite, The New York Times.So it was surely a bittersweet moment when I broke the news in 2004: I was moving to New York to cover the Knicks for The Times.I know there was sadness about the distance, but I also know Dad was thrilled and proud. Fifty years earlier, he’d taken a school field trip to the old Times building on West 43rd Street, marveling over the printing presses and Linotype machines. Now here I was, walking into that same newsroom for the biggest opportunity of my career.Dad didn’t watch a lot of basketball, but I knew he was following my work from the periodic emails he’d send to comment on a particular lede or turn of phrase.“Just read your game 5 story or should i say poetry,” he wrote after a finals game in 2013. “I hope your bosses appreciate it much as mom and i do. I am sure most of your readers do.”From April 2017, when I wrote about Michael Jordan’s enduring shadow as the so-called greatest of all time: “Your GOAT story was sent out as a ‘Pocket’ favorite in todays email from them.”I once wrote about the simmering Knicks-Nets rivalry, and the tensions between the Knicks owner James L. Dolan and the Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, eliciting this email quip from Dad: “Dolan can get you sent to Staten Island, but Prokhorov might be able to send you to the Gulag.”Howard Beck’s father wrote to him after reading this N.B.A. finals gamer in 2013. He called it “poetry.”Credit…The New York TimesThe N.B.A. season will be underway again soon, although largely without fans in attendance, or in-person access for reporters, or any sense of normalcy.But I think I’ll miss the travel more than anything, even after two million miles and 2,000 hotel nights over the last 23 years. The beat has surely cost me many nights at home, but it has also kept me connected with far-flung friends and family.Trips to Portland meant getting drinks with an old high school friend. Going to Milwaukee meant dinner with a college newspaper buddy who is now a doctor. In Denver, it was an old newsroom pal who went on to cover the Afghanistan war and the 2008 Democratic primaries. Once I moved East, the beat got me frequent trips back to California.Sometimes, the beat has placed me in exactly the right place at the right time.In April 2011, I got to spend a morning with my Grandma Ruth, at a nursing home outside Sacramento — a trip I took to report on the Kings’ (seemingly) imminent move to Anaheim. She died a week later, at 94.In December 2016, after a trip to Milwaukee for a feature on the Bucks rookie Thon Maker, I detoured to Chicago, to visit my Aunt Judy, who had been battling a rare form of cancer for three years. She was gone three weeks later.Without the N.B.A., I never get those final moments.Call it synchronicity or fate or bashert. Maybe it was just the basketball gods looking out for me. I don’t know.But I know this: The Warriors got me a trip home in June 2019, at a time I never would have been there otherwise. We watched Holzhauer lose that night, and I think Dad was disappointed to see the streak end. In the days that followed, the Warriors would lose Durant to a torn Achilles’, Thompson to a ruptured A.C.L. and the title to the Raptors.The next week, Dad had a bad fall at home, breaking two bones in his neck. He spent the next few weeks recovering, rehabilitating and making plans to go home again. We had no reason to think he wouldn’t. But the fall set off a cascade of other problems, and one day I got a call that he’d been taken, unconscious, from the board-and-care facility to the hospital. Multiple organs were failing.By the time I arrived back in California, he was effectively in a coma. Two nights later, he was gone.At the time, I felt robbed of the chance to say goodbye or any of the things you imagine you might say when you know the end is coming. I guess I still sort of feel that way. But I am grateful for those final moments I got at his hospital bedside, and for one otherwise-ordinary evening in June, when the Warriors still reigned supreme, Holzhauer was undefeated and Dad could match wits with Alex Trebek from his recliner.I don’t know if the Warriors can regain the magic that made them great. I don’t know if we’ll ever see them dominating the N.B.A. again, or owning the finals spotlight. But I’m thankful they did for those five years, and although I never-ever-ever root for teams, I’m quietly hoping they do it again.Howard Beck covered the N.B.A. for The New York Times from 2004 to 2013.The Scoop @TheSteinLineDec. 7The Knicks are expected to hire Jaren Jackson Sr. for a role with the Knicks’ @nbagleague team in Westchester, league sources say Jackson played 12 seasons in the NBA, won a championship with San Antonio in 1999 and, of course, is the father of Grizzlies star Jaren Jackson Jr.The Knicks are targeting the late-in-training camp signings of the former Kings first-rounder Skal Labissiere and the former Celtics first-round pick James Young, league sources say, with both players expected to land with Westchester in the @nbagleagueDec. 4The NBA has officially suspended random marijuana testing for the 2020-21 season …Said NBA spokesman Mike Bass: “Due to the unusual circumstances in conjunction with the pandemic, we have agreed with the NBPA to suspend random testing for marijuana for the 2020-21 season and focus our random testing program on performance-enhancing products and drugs of abuse”Marijuana remains a banned substance in the NBA based on the current collective bargaining agreement and while random testing has been suspended … marijuana testing in cases of “cause” remains in placeMarc is away this week, but hit him up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More